Posted by DougD on April 17, 2005 at 20:43:18:
Did two dives on the Palawan off the Psalty V today. The surface temp. was about 62 and it was approx. 53 degrees at 110'. It was a wonderful shade of olive-brown, with about 10' of vis, for the first 70' or so, and then "open-up" to about 15' on the wreck. We got lucky and came down right on the big pipe which I assume is part of the mast. It was pretty dark down there but I saw some stuff. Mostly I watched my buddy shoot his lift bag, and by then we had reached the agree ascent time and started back up into the "peat-moss" above.
After a long surface-interval, lunch, and some dive planning we got geared up to go back down. During the interval I noticed a fleet of sail boats out in the bay, and someone mentioned that it must be a race. The water was just as cold on the second dive but down on the wreck I could see a little better, maybe 18'-20', this time we looked around a little quite a bit more and I noticed more fish. A big ling and some rock-fishes. The fans and strawberry anemones were pretty cool too. Since we didn't find the pointy end of the wreck I'm thinking we same forward of the mast. The size of the compartments that are open to the top deck was pretty impressive and got me wishing I had more time to spend down there at 100+.
We all surfaced and were back on the boat only a few minutes, still dripping in our suits when we notice this sail boat coming right past our dive-buouy and pretty close to the Psalty. Then turned off toward a large buouy a least a 200 yards off our starboard side. If that wasn't entertaining enough, two more boats where coming fast after the first. They didn't cut it quite as close at the first but we were yelling and cursing at them by now and the deck-hand was desperately trying to get the buouy line out of the water before it got snagged.
The situation was unfoulding right in front of us in slow-mo. The second boat realized it had turned to sharp and was going to pass inside their mark (the large buouy). She cut back to port. The second boat was going straight in for a T-Bone. The two crews started scrambling and cursing each other. From were I was standing it looked certain that they were going to collide but boat two made an incredibly sharp turn to starboard and they missed a major boo-boo by feet.
Yhew. Wait. Ah! Straight off our starboard side is a yet another boat sailing straighr for US!!! Gary was livid by now cursed a blue-streak of obsenities that would make a truck-stop whore blush, which got the guys attention in time for him to turn and pass our stern by 30' or so. Gary continued his tirad at the guy who actually tried to argue that we were in his way. "The Buouy is our turn marker," he offered.
Hee, hee. What a day!